Although it's hard to compare this film with the classics of foreign cinema, RUN LOLA RUN is one of the most entertaining films I've ever seen, period. Even my parents, otherwise subtitle-phobic, enjoyed it.

Perhaps this film marks a new movement in cinema, much as Truffaut's THE 400 BLOWS marked the beginning of the French New Wave?

Which brings us to a good question: must a film have substance in order for it to be a good film? Or is it enough to present us with an original idea that is entertaining and challenges ordinary filmmaking techniques?

Good point. My personal preference would be for substance, but that's certainly a preference for visceral reaction over technical precision. This probably has much in common with the Truffaut/Godard debate as well. I would pick Truffaut because of his narrative, but I will concede that Godard is the superior film maker of the two.

Take the case of Alain Resnais's "Hiroshima mon Amour" and "Last Year at Marienbad", which are both structurally elliptical and thematically similar in the exploration of time and haunted memory. I tend to watch "Hiroshima mon Amour" more often because of the engaging story. Although "Last Year at Marienbad" is more visually stunning, it seems fragmented and serves more as an adept technical exercise than a treatise of human existence.

RUN LOLA RUN was utterly worthless. Like watching MTV as a tape loop. People are so quick to praise something seemingly innovative without ever stopping to think about why this "innovation" had never been done before. Sometimes things aren't done because they shouldn't be! Innovation is not an end in itself. There is no style/substance dichotomy. Style is part of substance and vice versa. When one is unsuccesful in one area one is unsuccesful in both.Such is the case of RUN LOLA RUN.

I completely forgot that LOLA was a foreign film until I ran into this board ( not that I saw a dubbed version ). I didn't see every foreign film being released but I liked a documentary film on klaus Kinski, "My Best Fiend " by W. Herzog. I found it highly entertaining.